Suomalaisuuden liitto: Seeing Finland through blue eyes

Suomalaisuuden liittto, an association taken over by the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party to lobby against Finland’s ever-growing cultural diversity, condemns in a statement death threats to leading figures of the Finnish Swedish-speaking community.

While it is a good matter that the association’s chairman Sampo Terho condemns such death threats, it is quite another matter if we should take his words seriously. Should Suomalaisuuden liitto take instead a bold look at itself in the mirror and ask if it is somehow responsible for stoking the flames of intolerance against our Swedish-speaking community?

Together with Vapaa kielivalinta and the youth associations of the PS and National Coalition Party, Suomalaisuuden liitto has launched a campaign to demote Finland’s second official language to elective status at schools.

What kind of an association is Suomalaisuuden liitto? How many non-white Finns does it have on its board? None. The association sees Finland exclusively through blue eyes.

This is not the first time that death threats have been sent in Finland. Feminists, researchers and even Migrant Tales have been intimidated in such a questionable manner. There is a pattern, however: Those that promote or research cultural diversity are likely to get death threats in this country.

It’s clear by the PS’ and Suomalaisuuden liitto’s track record that they’re not too happy about Finland’s every-growing cultural diversity, which they see as a threat. This is one reason why we should treat Terho’s words with tweezers.

Check out how one PS MP played down the death threats while another one, former police chief inspector Tom Packalen, thought it was a bad idea to publish it as news on the country’s largest daily, Helsingin Sanomat, even if one of the daily’s managing editors was threatened.

Here again we see an old stunt by the PS: condemn racism but give it simultaneously a pat on the back.

Attaching little importance to intolerance speaks volumes as well.

Should we be worried by the exclusive white nationalism promoted by PS-run associations like Suomalaisuuden liitto? Certainly, but time has a magic effect and is ruthless with those who like to remain anchored in its stuffy corridors.

Those that don’t want to accept the fact that Finland never was, is, or will be just a “white” society, will eventually turn into museums where future generations can see with astonishment how some Finns thought about diversity a long, long time ago.